No Hall-of-Fame father at the noon press conference to introduce the new Wagner coach. Legendary high school coach Bob Hurley Sr. was in Ireland yesterday beginning a round of clinics.

No All-America brother, either.

Bobby Hurley Jr., who will join the Wagner staff once everyone settles in, was still on his way up I-95 from Florida.

And, even if unscripted, that’s probably the way it should have been.

This was Dan Hurley’s day, after all. Just like this is his job. Not to say his family wasn’t interested during the hiring process. "They called every day for updates," the new Seahawk coach chuckled. "My father was more excited than I was."

And when Hurley finally received word on Sunday that he was hired, his father was back on the phone again just like any proud father would be.

"I think he called everyone he knows," said the 37-year-old son, who becomes the 17th coach of a program which has a nice little gym thanks to the generosity of alum Donald Spiro, an idyllic location overlooking New York harbor thanks to the foresight of some Lutheran minister of 130 years ago, and a tradition of rarely getting it done in the Division I world of college hoops.

This past month was not the first time Hurley’s name had come up in a Wagner coaching search. He was on the list seven years ago, when Dereck Whittenburg left for Fordham University.

Hurley was just 30 back then. And only two seasons into his building project at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark.

"I was probably too young," he admitted Wednesday.

Not so now.

Hurley is smart. A history teacher when he’s not a coach.

And he’s accomplished. He won 92 percent of his games at St. Benedict’s, many of them against the very best teams in the country.

And for those who think he lacks the college experience to coach a Division I program, well, they might want to think again.

Butler coach Brad Stevens, who came within a good-looking half-court three-pointer of beating Duke and winning a national title on Monday, is 33. He was a fresh-out-of-college marketing trainee at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis when Hurley was already into his third season as an assistant at Rutgers, in the high-pressure, high-performance caldron of the Big East.

And Hurley has coached a handful of McDonald’s All-Americas at St. Benedict’s, which is a task he probably won’t have to worry about at Wagner.

So, yes, he’s experienced enough.

"He’s the real thing," said St. Benedict’s and Wagner alum Andre Van Drost, who, in the mid-80s along with Terrance Bailey, was part of the best backcourt in Seahawk history. "He goes in the gym, closes the door, and coaches. He’s tough and he’s good."

When Pitt coach Jamie Dixon called Wagner athletic director Walt Hameline on Hurley’s behalf, the message was simple enough: "I tried to hire him twice," was the endorsement.

Hurley actually accepted the Marist head-coaching position two years ago, only to back out the day before a press conference was scheduled. He and his wife Andrea simply couldn’t get their arms around a move to Poughkeepsie with their two young boys, away from friends and family.

"I’m not one of those guys who was going to move his family around from place to place like a lot of coaches do," he said yesterday. "That’s one of the things that made this job so appealing."

Let’s see how long the appeal lasts.

The returning Seahawk squad is very young. As a group, they are also not very big. Nor do they have much experience to fall back on. Wagner was 10th in scoring and eighth in defense in the 12-team Northeast Conference last season, which is never a good combination. The Seahawks also turned the ball over almost 17 times per game and were 10th in the league in rebounding-margin at a dismal -5.1 boards per game.

All of which pretty much explains the 5-26 and 3-15 NEC record. As of now, there are two recruits for next season who committed last fall to Mike Deane. One is a willowy 6-foot-7 project from St. Pat’s in Elizabeth in Josh Daniell; the other a guard, Evan Pierce, from the Pittsburgh area. Hurley has been in contact with both players. They appear ready to remain Wagner recruits.

What immediate help will they be?

Who knows?

At this point, the new coach has just one more scholarship to give, which is probably not nearly enough.

"It’s going to be a challenge," he admitted of the short term. "Even with the players who are coming back, there’s a certain amount of healing that has to go on."

But Hurley believes there’s another side to the work ahead.

"This is the best area in the country for high school basketball," he declared. "There are plenty of players in New York and New Jersey. We have to get into the trenches and fight for them."

The Hurley name won’t hurt in that hunt.

Neither will the fact this his father is still the coach of St. Anthony, Jersey City, a program as consistently good as any in America, and one that routinely produces four or five kids each year who could play at Wagner.

Will any players be making the journey from Jersey City to Grymes Hill?

"They’d better," laughed Hurley, who may have been enjoying his own day but isn’t crazy. "If he doesn’t help, who’s going to?"